A Father's Duty
by Dr. Saibot M.D
Summary: We all know the story of Delta, the Big Daddy who rose to the surface. However, what of the others who simply lived their lives protecting the Family's Little Sisters? This is the story of one such Father. Updates late Saturday (tentatively) every other week.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter One:

"Look Daddy! Angels!" The little sister smiled at her lumbering Protector, pulling on the fingers of his gloves to hurry him along. The Big Daddy released an echoing call from deep in his throat, nearly shaking the windows that lined the corridor. Even without words, the Little Sister knew exactly what Daddy was saying.

"Be careful, but don't worry. I'm watching." She couldn't see her Daddy's face, but the girl could tell he was smiling, the green glow that emanated from his helmet betraying his emotions.

"I know Mr. Bubbles," the Little Sister said, calling him by the cutesy nickname that all the girls call their fathers. "I'm always safe with you." Finally reaching the Angel, Daddy's little girl set to work. She wasted no time in draining the Adam from the Angel that lay on the ground before her, and quickly drank the red liquid that filled her syringe. "All done, Daddy!" The little sister squealed in delight as her Protector scooped her up into his arms and placed her on his shoulder, and the metal man let out a deep, soothing rumble, like a large engine.

"Up you come. Do you want to watch with me?" The little Sister's only response was to laugh and hug the enormous helmet that she sat next to. The Protector slowly turned around and headed for a door near the window. On the Metal Man's shoulder, the little girl towered over everything. Her daddy was bigger than everything, no matter where she was. He stood well above the other denizens of Rapture, glaring and brandishing his drill at them as he passed. Luckily, the Splicers he passed today were cowardly enough to slip down hallways, fearing the Tin Giant's Wrath.

Trudging through Raptures dank halls and watery passages, the Tin Daddy rumbled quietly to the tune that floated on the air from their destination. Reaching his goal, a ballroom with an enormous plate-glass window to the ocean, the Metal Man sat with great effort in front the viewport. The little sister marveled at the sights from her comfortable seat of his armored shoulder. The Protector stared silently through the windows of his mask, and through the windows of the city, and simply thought to himself. Although it was sometimes difficult to see through the glowing liquid inside his helmet and the grimy glass of his visor, he could still see the ocean. The water was beautiful, a deep blue color, swirling through vibrant plant life, enveloping wriggling animals, and settling the silt on the floor.

However, the Ocean was like Rapture. It seems beautiful and perfect from a distance, but really it is cold, violent, unfriendly, and dangerous. Unless you were a Big Daddy. It was only when carrying their children with them were the Metal Men threatened, and the furious red glow of a roused Father was often the last thing a reckless Splicer saw. The Protector often wondered how it would be to simply go into the ocean, and walk. Walk away from Rapture with its murderers and mutants. Like always, when the thought crossed his mind, another shut it down immediately, like a drill to the head of a Splicer.

I cannot leave her, thought The Protector, And I cannot take her in the ocean. So, I must stay. The Protector turned his head towards the girl on his shoulder and was surprised to find her asleep. He hadn't realized how long he had been introspective.

Cradling his daughter in his armored hands, he roused her with a deep, low rumble. She yawned quietly, squeaking slightly, like a tiny kitten being awoken.

"Good morning Daddy."

The Protector smiled behind his visor and walked the little girl to the nearby Hidey-Hole and helped her inside.

"Goodbye, Mr. Bubbles. We'll play again, right?"

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**Well, that was short. I had just finished playing Bioshock 2 for the sixtieth time when i thought "Hey, Big Daddies are freaking cool. Lets write a story about one that absolutely mangles the established Lore!" Okay, maybe not exactly like that, but close enough. Obviously, I am taking some liberties with the character, but I like to imagine that the Big Daddies aren't completely mindless. When people are brainwashed or hypnotized, their own minds invent reasons for their own actions after the fact, as if it is their own idea. Here, it isn't the Big Daddies own mind, but the scientists who implanted the reason for their actions: protecting the Little Sisters.**

**So, did anyone like this? Should I post chapter 2?**

**Please, Read, Review, Recycle.**


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2:

Once they have delivered his daughter to safety, The Big Daddies have no real goal. There is no schedule to keep, no pressing matters at hand. There isn't even a need to search for fresh water, as the armored suit recycles the water intravenously, ejecting waste into the ocean. There were only two things to do: repair the city and find food. The Protector found himself occupied with the latter.

Ripping the wrapper from an old protein bar that he had found in an old apartment, the Iron Giant inspected the chocolaty rectangle. Finding no molds or obvious chemical affections, he crumbled it into a chunky powder in his hand and mixed it with the condensation that misted over his steel plating, forming a lumpy paste. The Metal Man filled a small vial on the inside of his forearm with the mixture, and the intake valve quickly sucked down the "food".

Although it didn't seem very appetizing, The Protector found himself wondering how it tasted. As a man stuck in a metal cage, with no way out, he had never tasted anything, and it was an odd thing to wonder about a sense. On days when The Protector was feeling more conscious of his body inside of his suit, he could feel his tongue hanging limply inside of his mouth, but he could not taste the inside of his mouth.

'With the various nerve endings throughout my body deadened,' the Big Daddy thought, 'taste is forever lost to me. In fact, the only senses that I have is sight, hearing, and an incredibly vague sort of feeling that consist only of pain and not-pain.'

Shaking himself from his thoughts, the Metal Man realized that he had allowed himself to be distracted by deep thinking again. It was unlike him. Although his thought process was beyond simply "protect the girl" and "kill the others", like the Splicers seemed to think, he wasn't normally a terribly philosophical person.

Mentally mapping a path to the airlock, The Protector shambled down the passage, his knee-joints creaking. Suddenly, there was a whispering from the doorway ahead, barely audible above the din of the Metal Man's heavy tread and noisy joints. He paused, listening for the Splicers to continue. If it was nothing, that's okay, there is no schedule to keep, but if it is something... The Splicers were always after the Little Sisters, ravenous for the ADAM the girls collected, and were not worried about what they had to do to get it. Whenever a group of Splicers got their grubby claws on someone's daughter, there was rarely enough left to bury.

"I'm tellin' ya, there's no way it can go wrong!" A deranged male voice whispered excitedly.

"'Ave you got maggots in your head already?" A vehement hissing sound came from the second speaker, who was likely a woman. "The Tin Daddy will rip us to shreds if we even get close!"

You could practically hear the smile in the man's next words. "That's the beauty of it! We have guns, we don't need to be close. We'll just keep running down the hallway, and the Daddy'll follow us, and we'll be shootin', and the daddy will be dead! It's foolproof!"

It was at this point that The Protector drew level with the doorway that the two Splicers were huddled in, and the effect on the two was instantaneous.

The woman screamed and fumbled for her machine gun as she backed-pedaled into the apartment they were crouched in front of. The man, who already had his revolver out, pointed it at The Protector and fired. The bullet hit a glancing blow off of his armored shoulders and ricocheted into a wall with a tinny plinking sound. The Metal Man roared and brought his drill to bear, driving the tip into the man's abdomen, the spinning ripping intestines from their home and sending a gout of frothing blood onto the walls. The dying Splicer wriggled on the ground for a few moments more before The Iron Giant brought his weighty boot down on the smaller man's skull. As he was crushing his opponent's brain into the floor, fragments of skull and gray matter flying through the air, the female splicer leveled her tommy gun at the Metal Man. She let fly a hail of bullets, and the iron giant's consciousness registered the almost-feeling of pain as the projectiles thudded against the heavily-padded suit he wore, but none penetrated through. With a mighty cry, The Metal Man charged at the Splicer with his hand open, simply ignoring the Almost-feelings of pain as bullets chattered from the muzzle of the gun. As his opponent ran out of ammo and reached for another clip, The Metal Man reached them, not slowing down as he snatched the Splicer from her feet. He sprinted with the Splicer held straight in front of him directly at the back wall of the apartment, and the Splicer's screams were dramatically cut short as The Metal Man shattered his opponent against the unyielding metal. Ribs and vertebrae snapped, severing the spinal cord and puncturing lungs, slashing open the stomach, and spilling digestive juices into the squashed sack of organs that was once a human torso.

The Metal Man dropped the crushed corpse, and wiped his hand on a mostly clean section of wall. Although the suit regulates all air intake, and breathes at a regular pace whether willed to or not, The Metal Man imagined that he should be breathing hard.

'If I were without my suit, I would be gasping for air, sweating, and tired,' The Protector thought, once he had regained control of the adrenaline, 'But I'm just messy.' It was true. The Protector was covered in blood and human effluence; most of it wasn't fresh. Whenever he was caked in residue from battling with Splicers, or simply something was on his mind, The Protector Always went the ocean floor. The sweep of the water's current and the swaying of the plants calmed him, set The Metal Man at peace. Without looking back at the damage he caused to two human beings, he set off on his original course, trying to remember the tune he had heard in the ballroom.

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**A/N: Well, that was different from the first chapter. Yes, I realize that it made no real sense for the Splicers to attack, since there was no Little Sister involved, but the Splicers panicked. Also, when did Splicers ever operate with sense?**

**To answer any questions you probably will not have, because no-one probably wants to read this:**

**No, there won't be too much Ultra-violence in future chapters, unless you like that of course.**

**Unless I get on a real writing kick, future chapters will likely be roughly the same length as these last two.**

**I will try to update once a week while I have time, but I might not always have time (A.K.A Video Games and work)**

**Yes, I love you.**

**Thank you for reading! Also, any input for the story or even the summary would be welcome! Thank you!**

**Read, Review, Recycle.**


	3. Chapter 3

A Father's Duty 3

Sealing with a hiss of air, the airlock door slammed shut behind its recent patron. The Protector grasped the rusted lever of the flood/drain control and forced it into the open position, sending fountains of water gushing into the small steel box. The Metal Man wiped away the flecks of water that appeared in front of his eyes, which was pointless as he was quickly submerged beneath the water, and he laughed silently at himself.

Forcing open the hatch to the outside, the Iron Giant took in his surroundings and pretended to breathe deeply. It was in the open ocean that The Protector felt the most free and the most welcome. There were no murderous psychopaths out here, and if they tried to follow from inside Rapture, their skulls would pop like air bubbles. "There are no worries out here, no killers, no Angels, and no need to worry about water, food, or air." The Protector thought to himself, leaping out into the sea, "My suit constantly collects the algae and plankton floating in the water, pulls oxygen from the water, and I never need to worry about water. This must be what paradise is like."

With clouds of various fluids trailing in the water around him as he progressed via leaping forward, The Protector cut a colorful figure. The ocean shimmered around him with reflections from engine grease and was tinted red by blood. A curious school of sharks came to investigate the strange beast that smelled like blood and steel, but left unsatisfied once all of the blood had washed from the Metal Man's suit. The Protector smiled beneath his helmet and let out a happy rumbling groan that a passing baleen whale responded to.

The Metal Man loved the ocean. Everything about the sea made him happy, like the currents swirling through his carapace and the bobbing of the waves far, far above. Most of all, however, he loved the desolation. There are no curious Splicers staring at you to see if your daughter is an easy target, no scientific experiment-gone-wrong lurking behind every corner, and no Families taking your daughter from you every night and watching you all hours of the day. There are no flying turrets, because they would short out, there are no people because they would pop from the pressure. There are no Sisters, because they would drown. There are only the Fathers and the fish. Only those suited to living in the harsh, unforgiving landscape can enjoy it.

"Speak of the devil." The Protector thought, spotting another Big Daddy, a Rosie, working to repair a wall that had buckled under the pressure. Shuffling through the sand, so as to not over shoot his target and slam into the damaged wall, The Protector made his way to the working Big Daddy and inclined his head at the wound in the side of Rapture.

"Luckily, it was a single room with a closed bulkhead, so the entire area hasn't flooded. The top of the wall ripped clear from the frame and the whole thing folded." The Rosie moaned in response, and proffered a hydraulic jack. "I need to straighten it back up so I can weld it" The Metal Man grabbed the jack and braced it against the base of the crushed wall with his left hand. Slotting the powerful drill that is attached to his right hand into the port on the jack designed for just such a tool, The Protector spun his drill, the rotation activating the inner workings of the jack and sending the head firing from its housing with explosive force. Striking with the force if a hundred hammers, the head of the jack hit the wall at its top, right under the lip that the Rosie had riveted in place for the repairs. With a screeching of metal, the wall jerked into a more straight position, before changing to a considerably slower pace as the jack-head pressed against the busted wall. After full minutes of the agonizing sound of metal scraping metal and the whir of The Protector's drill motors, the wall finally stood straight, the jagged gaps in the sheet metal flush with the sharp edges where it once connected.

Without a word, the Rosie began his part of the work, removing a waterproof Arc-welder from his tool-pouch, and began grafting the shattered pieces of metal back together. Disengaging from the jack, The Metal Man bounded away from the other Big Daddy, preferring to find a more desolated area. If they ever met again, they would not recognize each other, but that didn't matter. No one else truly mattered, just your own daughter.

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**A/N: That was really short, much shorter than I had intended. I haven't had the time to write very much this past week due to work and family matters, but I wanted to try putting something out, so this happened. I promise the next chapter will be longer, and hopefully better. Thank you very much for reading!**

**Read, Review, Recycle.**


	4. Chapter 4

The Protector leapt through the water, his path illuminated by long-sunken neon signs and bio-luminescent plants. With each bound, his boot stuck in the mud, and the murk sucked at his soles. Removing a curious octopus that had hitched a ride on his shoulder, The Metal Man halted in front of a window and gazed inside. There were two splicers behind it, obviously arguing, both angry-looking men with primitive sloped foreheads and strands of drool hanging from their lips. One began poking the other in the chest, and The Metal Man could imagine just what was being said. He heard it most days as he stalked the dank halls of Rapture.

"You get yer bleedin' hands offer it, maggot-breath!" The aggressor would scream, then "Nevahr! I found it, its moine! Oi'll nevahr let you haff it!" from the other. That was always when the fight broke out, one swinging a club at the other's head, and the object over which they were battling for would fall to the ground, forgotten until one of the thugs blood was spilled across the room.

"Life in Rapture is bleak, short, and brutal. It's a wonder that the splicers haven't driven themselves extinct." The Protector thought to himself, turning away from the window, noticing the fight turn out exactly as he had predicted in his peripheral vision. He distantly heard the dull thump of bone shattering against steel. Once more bouncing through the slow moving currents of the ocean floor, The Metal Man recognized a familiar glowing sign and knew he was close to his destination. "Veronica's Bookstore," The Iron giant whispered to himself, glad that he could still read. For a very long time, he had been unable to, and was puzzled with what all of the letters could mean. One day, after he had been struggling to understand the runes that glowed in neon lights, he felt a sudden pain in the back of his skull. A real pain, unlike the dull sensation he received when injured, and it was glorious. The Protector had relished the feeling like he did the freedom of movement that came with oiling his joints, only more so. Along with the pain came the realization that he could now understand what the jumbled symbols meant, and each word was accompanied by more sensation. The Metal Man read everything he could find, even the most banal advertisement for soap, just so he could feel the beautiful pain behind his eyes. Over time, however, the pain faded and eventually stopped. The love of reading remained, though.

When he discovered the flooded bookstore, The Iron Giant had been overjoyed or at least as such for something with little emotions. He equated it with the happiness that came when his daughter sat upon his shoulder, giggling and babbling. Although many of the books had been ripped to shreds by raiding Splicers before something ripped a hole in the wall, holding the door shut with water pressure and leaving access from the ocean the only option, there was still a great number of books, both hardcover and paperback, that had been preserved by the frigid water. The Protector knew that if he removed the books from the water, they would immediately fall apart, and be ruined forever. The Metal Man wished he could share the books with his daughter, but knew it was fruitless.

However, there was one thing that truly confused him. What sort of creature was a Veronica? Was it the type that the store catered to? The Protector had never seen a Veronica. It was like in the novels he read, there were many different fantastical creatures called Maxwells, Alexanders, and Marys. There were so many races he had never seen. There were even two in The Iron Giant's own home of Rapture. The Andrewryans, and the Sofialambs were talked about everywhere, by every single splicer, but he had never seen one. "They must be a rare sort of creature." The Iron Giant thought, finally reaching the gaping hole in the wall at Veronica's Bookstore.

Lunging into the small store, The Metal Man's massive bulk clipped a floating chunk of slag, sending it ricocheting off of a wall. He had set all of the bookshelves back against the walls, so as to make room for his gargantuan body, but it was still rather cramped. Very slowly lowering himself into a sitting position, The Metal Man scooted himself over to where he had shelved his recent prize, a slim paperback that hadn't come from the store, but had been found floating in the open sea. Although slightly gnawed on by a fish that had found it before The Protector, The Abandoned Pantheon, as it was titled, was interesting fiction. It told of a mythical place called Stonehenge, surrounded by grass and air, with no water surrounding it, and someplace called a sky above it. It was a good read, and The Protector was glad he had found it, but couldn't fathom the fantasy of the setting.

"No water," The Protector groaned to himself, his rumbling voice causing bubbles to rise in the water. "Preposterous."

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**(A/N): That was interesting, I hope. I couldn't help myself, I had to give The Protector my love for books. Even inhuman experiments need a hobby.**

**In response to a review by an Anon, mkz: Sorta. It's a life, and in every life there are important happenings, and there are just totally everyday ones. Although I do plan to put a pretty major story line in soon, I plan to do at least one more snapshot before I start it, so I can really get a feel for the character. Plus I like snapshots...**

**Thank you so much for reading this! There are a ton more people reading this than I thought there would be, and it just makes me so happy! Like, I get excited every time I see someone even looked at my story. **

**I'd like to thank a few people really quick:**

**My best friend who I discovered the Fandom with, Its thanks to him and a Gamestop Sale that this story was ever thought of. Thanks for all the nights of staying up late and coming up with ridiculous stories. Never change.  
****NJL97, for being my first reviewer ever. This guys stories are freaking amazing, btw. I seriously recommend checking him out.  
Barber447, for reviewing at the exact perfect time to remind me I have work to do.**

**I seriously love all of you guys. (Yes, even you)**

**Please, Read, Review, Recycle.**


	5. Chapter 5

The Protector rose from his seat on the floor of Veronica's Bookstore, wedging a blade of cracked glass into The Abandoned Pantheon as a bookmark before placing the book in its place on a shelf. It was nearly time to meet his daughter again. Loping across the sea floor, The Protector imagined her warm smile, filthy brown hair, and dingy clothing. Rumbling excitedly, The Metal Man flung open the door of the airlock and thumped over to the shining bronze Hidey-hole. Knocking on the vent three times, The Iron Giant waited patiently, listening for the scrabbling of tiny hands and feet. He was delighted to see two glowing yellow eyes peer from the darkness.

"Hi Daddy!" The Little Sister said, reaching out for her father. The Protector reached into the hole and plucked his daughter out, moaning in happiness. He placed her on the floor and she immediately grasped his enormous fingers, trying to pull him down a hallway. "This way, daddy! ADAM!" The daughter laughed, and rushed ahead, her blonde ponytail bobbing behind her. Chasing after his daughter, The Protector felt happiness bubbling inside of his chest. Whenever he could see his daughter, that was always when he could feel true bliss. Her innocent vigor and naiveté rejuvenated him, and she was the only reason he stayed in the hellhole of Rapture.

"I told you I'd find ADAM, daddy!" His daughter had finally stopped running, and was bending over to catch her breath. She beamed up at The Metal Man and pointed at an _Angel. _She began using her syringe to extract the ADAM, giggling as the tube filled with crimson liquid. When the Syringe was finally filled, the sister sucked on the nipple on the other end. She quickly drained the liquid and belched when she was finished.

"You know better than to do that. It's rude." The Protector rumbled in disapproval, flashing his helmet lights yellow at his daughter.

"I'm sorry Daddy, I didn't mean to. But the juice tastes different today. My tummy hurts." The little girl's face suddenly flushed scarlet, and she wobbled on her feet. Scooping up his daughter before she hit the floor, The Protector let out an ear-shattering roar. He cradled her to his chest and began running. He didn't know to where, but he had to take her somewhere. His legs went on autopilot, blowing past Splicers and other Fathers with their own giggling girls. He shouldered past wardrobes, chests of drawers, piles of rubble, and corpses.

Only one thought was running through his mind. _She can't die. She can't die. She can't die. _The Protector had no idea where he was running to, but his body seemed to. His daughter began coughing in his arms, but he didn't slow to check on her, couldn't slow down. He had no control. He didn't notice, though. _She can't die. She can't die. She can't die. _

Finally, after what seemed like hours, his legs stopped moving and he collapsed to his knees in front of a door. Looking up, he saw that the room before him was labeled Infirmary. _'Of course!_' The Protector thought, scrambling to his feet, '_There must be something in here that can help her!_' The Metal Man smashed the door down and lay his daughter down on a nearby table. Her coughing had grown far worse, and she hacked out a glob of blood and phlegm every few minutes. The Metal Man rummaged through every single cabinet, but found only cotton swabs and a plasmid with the label ripped off. There was nothing he could possibly use! He didn't know what he expected, but something must be able to help against a sickness brought by ADAM!

Wait, ADAM… The Protector paused and looked at the Plasmid in his hand. It probably wouldn't work, and would only add to his daughter's suffering, but it was the only possibility. He stood above his daughter and stroked her hair with his reinforced gloves,

"I'm so sorry about this. I don't want to do this, but it's the only chance." The Metal man moaned, and plunged the Plasmid's needle into a vein on the girl's thin wrist. Wet coughs quickly turned into pained screams, and shudders racked the child's body. The Protector cradled her thin frame, hoping to comfort her with his presence through the rewriting of her genetic code.

After a few moments, the plasmid had been accepted by the Little Sister's already mutated body, but was not receiving commands from her brain. It began to run amok in her system, feeding off of the latent ADAM in her system and activating itself. Sparks began springing from the girl's skin, sending metal objects around her flying. The Protector weathered the storm, never letting go of his child throughout. He stood his ground, ignoring the dull throbs of pain that came with each new strike of lightning from his child's flesh. The entire time, all that mattered was that each scream of pain from the girl in his arms grew fainter and fainter. Whether that was a good thing, he knew not.

It was a long time before the plasmid ran out of fuel. All of the raw ADAM in the Little Sister had been used up and exhausted, including the batch that had poisoned The Protector's daughter. She lay collapsed in her father's lap, exhausted and panting.

"I'm tired, Daddy… I want to go home." The little girl whimpered. As if in answer, a grating screech, familiar to both of them, came from the shadows. A single glowing bulb descended from a hole in the ceiling, and the body of a skinny young woman materialized behind it.

"Hello father! I heard screams, is something wrong?" The Big Sister swept closer and saw the Little Sister.

"I got sick," The Protector's daughter yawned, and smiled, "Daddy saved me though. " The Metal man gently patted her light blonde hair, and moaned.

"Will you take her home?" He growled pleadingly, "She wouldn't be able to crawl all the way back like this." The Big Sister made a sound like metal scraping stone, the equivalent of a squeal of delight.

"I'd love to!" The Big Sister gently took the proffered child and lowered her into the cage on her back. "I'll see you later Father. I'll tell everyone how amazing you were today. It has been awhile since the girls heard a new hero story." The young woman slipped away the, acrobatically climbing up into the ceiling in a way The Protector knew he never could.

'_It has been a very long day,' _The Iron Giant thought, slipping into a seated position, '_I didn't even know that the ADAM could make the girls sick. I've never even heard of that…'_

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**(A/N): Woohoo! Longest chapter yet! Hopefully re-typing all of that between 7:00 and 10:00 didn't affect the quality (HAH! Quality, as if). I'm not sure if it is as fun to read, but that was definitely enjoyable to write. For some reason, I just had a lot of fun with this chapter.**

**A few Words of Thanks:  
To my best friend, without who this story never would have existed. Thank you for the encouraging PM, it meant more than you'd think.  
NJL97, who is still an incredible author. God, I love your stories. Seriously, check this dude out. Now. My story can wait.  
Barber447, again, for the reminder that I love doing this. Thank you for the complements, it made my day :)**

**Seriously, it absolutely makes my day whenever I see a new review or even a new view. Its ridiculous, I didn't think even one person would read my story, and so far almost 400 people have. Its ridiculous. Thank you all so much!**

**!SOMETHING IMPORTANT!**

**I would like to know if anyone has a creative nickname for Big Sisters. I've always found them to be incredible and interesting characters, but I can't think of anything. I'd like to know what you guys call them, because if there's a creative site on the interwebz, it's Fanfiction. Also, less important, should I start doing chapter titles? Thank you very much!**

**Please, as always:**

**Read, Review, Recycle**


	6. Chapter 6

The Protector's footsteps shook the metal staircase as he ascended towards a vent. It had been nearly a week since his daughter had been poisoned by the ADAM, and there had been no word about anyone else getting sick, but he worried nonetheless. Over the past few days, The Metal Man had watched over many of his daughters, who were all equally important to him, but his thoughts kept returning to the one with the filthy blonde hair. She had only come crawling from the hidey-hole once since the incident, and her normally vibrant yellow eyes had seemed more focused, but rather depressed. Her plasmid had been given her difficulties, like shocking her and her playmates at random back at home or electrifying a puddle as she stepped into it, but it was more than that. The glow in her soul had dimmed.

Reaching the top of the stairs, The Protector heard shouting and paused. If the area was flooded with Splicers, it wouldn't be safe to call for his daughter. He moaned with slight annoyance as he trotted over to a catwalk to check out the disturbance. Peering down into the atrium below, what he saw shocked him. A large crowd of every type of Splicer had gathered in the hall, the glass ceiling above them letting in just enough light from the canal above to make out general shapes. Houdinis sat next to Spiders, with Leadheads and Thugs mixed in. It wasn't just the eclectic nature of the gathering that was odd; every last one of the assembled mutants was silent. All but one.

"The Time has come!" The Splicer at the head of the column shouted out at the assembly. He didn't stand on any platform or stage, but he didn't need to. The leader was easily the largest person in the room, appearing to stand four meters at the shoulder. He was also heavily mutated, with multiple extra appendages sprouting from his back and waist, lumpy growths that could be new limbs forming dotted his torso and head, and all seven of his eyes moved independently of each other. His many arms and legs were massive, each the thickness of The Protector's already-large torso. The Protector was reminded of seeing the skeleton of a creature called a mammoth, except that the Splicer was larger. "The Time has come!" The Leader repeated, his voice booming in the silent chamber, "The she-devils, with their glowing eyes, they have brought about the curse that we now bear. Their existence has tortured us for all time, and their laughs taunt us as they drink from our dead! Enough, I say! They have reached the end of their road! The Tiny-Ones will be served justice, crushed beneath the weight of our pain, and slaughtered with the steel beasts they hold in their sway!" The incredible specimen of forced evolution gave a rousing speech, but he very well may have been talking to himself. There was not a sound coming from the gathered Splicers.

The Protector stood dumbfounded. The giant was blaming the Daughters for the mutations that the denizens of Rapture had gone through. Not only that, he had somehow convinced a small army that he was correct, and managed to control and discipline them. No, that wasn't quite right, The Metal Man realized as he noticed the red mist tinting the air in the atrium. The leader must have an incredibly powerful hypnotism Plasmid, and was using it to control the mob of Splicers. The Iron Giant forced himself to listen to the rest of the giant's spiel, doing his best to stay out of sight.

"Already, the downfall of the Tiny-Ones has begun! My disease has already begun to spread through Rapture's corpses, poisoning the blood for the she-devils. The Death of the Deep has started its work, and it is only a matter of time before they are weak enough for us to destroy. Our vengeance shall ravage their bodies, just as their curse ravages ours!" The leader's speech fell on deaf ears, but he acted as if cheers rang out from the crowd. However, the one audience member who had actually been listening did not feel like cheering. In fact, he felt like violently regurgitating the breathing fluid that permanently filled his lungs. Before, The Protector had been able to simply kill or destroy anything that had threatened his daughters. Against such a large group of enemies, even he had no chance, not to mention the leader. The Metal Man would be tossed aside like an empty wrapper. He needed help, and to report the sickness that the Splicer was spreading, somehow, to all of the Angels.

The Protector began hoofing it to Point Prometheus, post-haste. He needed to get word about this back to home, but he couldn't go himself. He didn't even know where the home was, and other than his daughter's, he had no regular communication with home or the Big Sisters, and it was too risky to call his little girls to him. However, he knew where at least one of the older girls liked to spend her days.

* * *

**(A/N): Boom, conflict introduced. I actually had free time to work on this chapter, yay! That free time was tragically cut short by summer homework, not-so-yay! I less wrote this new villain than I did remember it from a nightmare, then twist it as needed. It was pretty demoralizing in the confines of my skull, and I really hope that I was able to get that across.**

**A few quick thank-you's:  
To my best-friend, for being completely and utterly insane. Never change.  
**

**NJL97, for the kind words and encouragement. Also, seriously, I can't make this point enough, read this cool person's stories. I'm actually reading "_Alone Under The Sea" _right now.  
**

**Barber447, for being a loyal and kind reader and inadvertently giving me a name for the disease and inspiring this chapter. It may not be what this cool person had intended it for, but whats a little idea-robbery between friends?  
**

**PhloxPopuli, I'm glad I could surprise you. I was trying to do something I had never seen before, and still keep it interesting. I guess it worked :D  
**

**SadisticAvocado, thanks for the suggestion and the complement. Sissy should work great for the little sisters.**

**Aperture Science Turret, thanks for the Banshees idea for when I have the Narrator or The Protector talking. Also, I have to admit I was the slightest bit scared when I paused my game of Portal to check my email and your name popped up... On the Porthole topic, in my mind, they can see both through and_ with _the fluid in the helmets. I can explain in greater detail in-story, if anyone is curious.**

**I really just want to thank you all for staying with the story and reading each chapter. It simply amazes me whenever I look at my inbox and see someone Favorited, or just look at the story stats and see another few people checked out the story. It blows my mind that people actually want to read what I write. Thank you so much.**

**Also, this chapter is brought to you by Infinite Leekspin. 8 hours is my record.**

**Please Read, Review, Recycle.**


	7. Chapter 7

The Protector slammed the door behind him as he stomped into the Point Prometheus Proving Ground. Shattered glass and jagged strips of metal littered the floor, but he simply walked through it, his reinforced boots protecting him. The Metal Man slipped on a blood slick from one of the many who failed to make it through the trials of the Proving Ground, and hit the floor with a ringing of metal-on-metal.

"Are you okay, Father?" A screech rang out from a dark doorway, and a single cracked eye-lamp shone into the room. A slim figure glided over to The Protector and grabbed his enormous gloves with her own thin fingers. Heaving with deceptive strength, she hauled The Protector to his feet and dusted him off, her eye-lamp glowing a pleased green. She didn't get many visitors in such a dangerous place, and was always happy to see one of her many Fathers.  
"What's brought you here Father? Just feeling lonely again?" The Big Sister mewed contentedly, perching on The Protector's broad shoulders.  
"Listen to me, you have to pay attention." The Protector rumbled, lightly grabbing the lanky adolescent from his back and suspending her in front of him. "I have a very important job for you. You have to listen." The daughter nodded her head wildly, and let out a screaming giggle.

The Protector felt a sliver of guilt drive its way Into him. It was his fault that the Daughter before him was so very... Wrong. He should have been there for her, like he once was, always watching over her. If he had been there for her, then the Rouge Father who had taken so many children from Home wouldn't have been able to hurt her. So long ago that it felt like forever, when the Rouge attacked the Old Home, his Daughter had fought to protect the younger children, but the Rouge had no mercy. He struck her on the back of the head, cracking her eye-lamp and denting her helmet into her skull. Ever since, she had been unbalanced, and the Family shunned her. They sent her out to Point Prometheus, to "watch over the historical artifacts" left over from the Original Big Daddies. Her unnerving happiness never wavered though, and she welcomed any Fathers or Daughters that visited her. From time to time, The Protector would visit her, but it always wrenched at him to see her like this.  
"You need to tell everyone about a disease. A Splicer, the biggest I've ever seen has made a disease, and wants to kill all the Little Sisters. Home has to be warned!" Even as The Metal Man spoke to her, she began to fidget and was obviously not paying attention. He couldn't trust her to carry his message, not when it was this important. Maybe there was still something she could do, though...

"I need you to take me somewhere." He said, resting The Daughter back on her feet, and patted her softly on the head. "I need you to lead me Home."

* * *

**A/N: That was likely disappointing for anyone who read it. Hey everybody, I'm not dead! I'm very sorry for skipping a week and not posting last Wednesday like I normally do. I'd like to say I had a really important reason to not post, but I didn't. Due to a combination of laziness and actually having a social life for the first time since I was born, I didn't type up a chapter for almost two weeks. This chapter would be much longer, but I want to have a bit more time to finalize the details for the new Big Sister character. I've been looking forward to this next one, and I don't want to rush it after being lazy for two weeks.**

**A few quick thank-you's before I get back to work:  
**

**To my best friend, for completely distracting me from this story with video games and movies.**

**To NJL97, for continuing to read my crappy fanfic, and forgetting to sign in :D If you haven't read this awesome person's story yet, what are you doing with your life?**

**To Barber447, for being an over-all incredible person. Seriously, you always have such nice things to say. I promise the villain will be back again soon, also.**

**To everyone who read the story and liked it, especially you guys who Favorited and followed. It means more to me than you think, and it always puts a smile on my face to see that another few people viewed my story.**

**In other news, I haven't been completely lazy the entire time! My friend and I have set up a Bioshock Roleplay Forum, called "Living Beneath The Waves"! If you'd like to come and do a bit of roleplaying with us, check it out and have some fun with us!**

**Forum Link: /forum/Living-Beneath-The-Waves/138429/ (add www fanfiction net in front, with the periods and stuff.) Or you could just search for it under forums in the search bar in the top right of your screen.  
**

**Fun fact, the working title for this story when I began it was "The Bag May Not Inflate", because for some reason the way I began it reminded me a lot of how airlines say "Put on your own oxygen mask before helping your child. Even though oxygen is flowing, the bag may not inflate."**


	8. Chapter 8

To say that The Elder Daughter was happy with her new assignment would be an understatement. The walls of Rapture rang with the sound of giddy screeching and jubilant squeals. The Daughter bounced around, swinging from rafters and putting on an acrobatic show for The Protector as he loped through residential halls. When he had asked her to lead the way Home, The Meal Man hoped the absent-minded girl would develop some sense of purpose, but nothing had changed. Every few moments, he had to remind her to direct him at a junction, or pull her away from a glowing algae clump that distracted her.

"She's still broken, likely irreparably, and a few stern orders aren't going to change that." The Protector thought, plucking the Elder Daughter from the ceiling and moaning a request for directions. "I just hope we can warn her sisters…"

"Father," The Daughter squealed quietly, pulling The Metal Man from his thoughts. "Are you alright? Did I do something wrong? Have I failed?" The innocence in her voice cut like a knife. She may have grown taller since she had wandered the city of Rapture at his side, but she had not grown up. She wasn't alone in this, as the other "Big Sisters" as the Splicers called them were all immature and _so very young. _

"No, you have done nothing wrong." The Metal Man's rumbling call was firm, but filled with warmth. "You can never do anything wrong, any of you. You haven't failed anything." Somewhere deep in his mind, The Protector knew that a fourteen year-old should not be seven-feet tall. The girls were powerful, yes, but their minds were not ready for that power. Many were half-mad from the years of ADAM, with or without brain damage. And still, the perfect Daughters, all of the girls that every Father loved equally and fully with all of their steely hearts, shunned the pitiful girl before him. Maybe the Fathers failed?

The Protector shook his head and patted his Daughter on top of her helmet. "We need to hurry home, okay? I don't know how much time we have." The Daughter scampered up to his shoulders and mewled contentedly.

"We need to go down there, but I don't know if you can…" The girl was pointing at an empty service elevator shaft, the door rusted open from wet air and disuse. Looking about, there was no other way down, as someone had somehow managed to burn down the only staircase and the entire entryway floor, effectively cutting off the levels below. Unless a forty foot drop is considered a manageable distance to fall, of course.

"Wait for me at the bottom, okay?" The Protector rumbled, motioning to the shaft. "Make sure you stay out of the way." The Daughter scrambled from The Metal Man's shoulders and slipped down the long-abandoned flue, with a quick glance over her shoulder at the Father. He waved her off, and she quickly disappeared into the darkness below.

Waiting for a hopefully sufficient amount of time, The Protector faced the lightless shaft and readied himself. With one swift motion, The Metal Man launched himself downwards, his legs ready to absorb the impact at the bottom of the shaft. He felt a tug at his insides and saw the liquids in his Suit floating randomly. He had read about this before, but living underwater doesn't often give the opportunity to experience free-fall. Almost as soon as the dream-like state was achieved, it ended. The floor came rushing up to meet him, and neither sheet metal nor the Diving Suits are very yielding. The resounding crash that followed was deafening, and it quite literally rattled The Elder Daughter. Her vision was blurred and she had no sense of direction, due to the impact actually shaking her around. It took a large dark shape coming over and hoisting her to its shoulders for her to notice that she had been on her back.

"Alright, so," The Protector groaned, his knee braces popping and clinking. "Where to from here?"

The Daughter made a sound that was like a cross between a giggle and the dying scream of an octopus.  
"We're almost there."

* * *

**A/N: Hello there! I'm back, with more filler-tastic chapters! I promise that the major story chapters are coming soon, hopefully next week. I just couldn't resist doing a chapter of plain old Daddy-Daughter bonding. I realize I said I'd start working on the first chapter of the big climax, but I'm a big fat liar. I was busy with social interaction until about an hour before I wrote all this, and as before, I don't want to rush something that important to the story. This is important too, just in smaller ways.**

**Also, I realized that I haven't announced this yet, but I plan to release a chapter late Wednesday/early Thursday every week, like I have been.**

**Some Cool People to thank!:**

**To my best-friend, for once more distracting me from this story by getting us both dragged behind a boat at high speeds, and being an overall cool dude.**

**To Barber447, for staying with me and reviewing every chapter, as well as being an all-around Cool Person. I'd come up with something else super-special-awesome to say about you, but I've been awake for about twenty-six hours now, and I think I've used all of my meager creativity on the story. And don't worry, you'll be seeing plenty of the Big Sister, I plan on her being a pretty major character.**

**To NJL97, for being one of the first people to actually read this story, and sticking with me ever since. I know I'm beating a dead horse here, but read this Cool Person's story. Please? For me?**

**To AwesomeDane, for such high praise :D That really means a lot to me, and its nice to hear from you! Also, "I'm Garrus Vakarian, and this is my new favorite spot on the Citadel." Is the only thing I could think of besides "Omigosh, that's so cool! I'm actually someone's favorite! Holy crap, I'm freaking out! Hey wait, wasn't he one of the first people to favorite/follow? I knew he would come back!"**

**To Animawolf (anon), Thanks for the nice words! Also, I'm sorry about the Forum link, Doc manager auto-deletes links, or anything reminiscent of a link, so I can't actually post one in my story, and the forum list for Bioshock is really derpy for me. I've set the forum as a Bioshock one four times by now and it still won't work. However, you can get to the forum simply by doing a Forum search in the search bar in the top right corner of the main screen. Simply select Forum, and type in "Living Beneath The Waves". That should work.**

* * *

**Wanna Role-play with me and my friend? Join us on our RP Forum! (if you can't find it on the Bioshock Forum list, see above for super-simple instructions.)**

**Forum Name: Living Beneath The Waves**

* * *

******_Hello, this section is a bit important****_**

**_Is there anyone who would consider doing some cover art for me? I'd really like to have a quality picture for this story, but I can't draw worth anything.  
If you are interested at all, You can PM me or leave a review saying so.  
I'd love to hear from you :D_**


	9. Chapter 9

"We're almost there!" The Daughter cried out from her vantage point on a fountain in the middle of the square. It had been two uneventful hours since the elevator incident, but The Protector felt an uneasy feeling wash over him. There was no way that the Splicers could have gotten here before him, or even know where the Home was, but he couldn't shake a sense of foreboding. It was as if something loomed in the darkness of the room around him.  
"The Home is just through here." The Daughter pointed at a set of old and rusted wrought-iron gates that had been placed in front of an arch. The sign above it read "Lynch's Court", but "Home" had been scribbled over it. The gates were shut tight, draped with chains and locks. There was no way to go through it, but there was an open spot above it, the perfect size for a thin and agile Daughter to get through.

"I need you to go through there," The Protector said, patting his Daughter on the shoulder and pointing at the gap. "Find one of your sisters and bring her here, I need to warn them." Quickly, The Daughter scampered off, sliding gracefully over the gate. On the other side, she waved at The Protector.

"I'll be right back," She called, and turned to go into the darkness beyond the gate. Suddenly, her sole green eye-lamp was joined by three yellow eyes, and she was tossed back towards the gate. The other three lamps coalesced into human forms, Elder Daughters just like her. The tallest one stood ahead of the other two and kicked the prone Damaged One in the head.

"You aren't allowed here. We've told you before." The Tallest kicked the Damaged once more. "We got rid of you when we threw out the Splicers. Why are you here?" The Damaged One weakly pointed at The Protector, who was standing there in shock, before curling into a submissive ball. The demeanor of the Daughters who were attacking the Damaged One changed instantly.

"Father!" The Tallest slipped over the gate and grabbed The Metal Man's hands. "Father, I'm sorry you saw that, she comes around some time, even though she knows she isn't allowed."

"I told her to bring me here." The Protector said, slipping his gloves out of her hands. "I came with a warning. I need to see everybody, to tell them." The Protector gestured at the Damaged One, still curled into a pitiful ball, and his eye-lamp flashed yellow. "One other important thing, do not ever harm her, or any of your sisters, again. We raised you better than this. I am ashamed of you." The Metal Man ripped the locks and chains from the gate and shoved his way in, scooped up the Damaged One, and tied up the chains around the gate in a complex knot of steel. He looked at one of the other daughters, "Gather everyone."

* * *

**A/N: Hello everybody! I'm back, and in daylight hours for once! I actually had a good nights sleep, which is why this chapter is a few hours late. I've been a little busy with back-to-school stuff and growing a social life. I wasn't totally sure I was gonna go this way, with the Sisters bullying the Damaged One. I did it anyway though. Cause yeah, reasons.**

**I've got a few people to thank:**

**Barber447, for continuing to read every chapter (likely against your better judgement :D), and complementing me, and being such a Cool Person all the time :D :) (: Smiley-Faces forever!**

**NJL97, for being an incredible author and a Cool Person (hope you're having fun on your week off!), and offering to draw cover art for me (which is awesome). If you haven't read his story yet, you probably haven't been reading this one either :D**

**Madlink007, thats what I was going for :D I realize that Delta wouldn't do that on purpose, but he bashed her skull in, and thought she was dead. (Also, for story convenience, shhhhh).**

**Thank you to everyone who has read this story, and has stuck with me the last few months. It seriously means a lot to me that people actually read this, and seem to enjoy it. Over 500 people have read this story, and that blows my mind. Its so amazing. You Cool People are amazing.**

**Thank you. Honestly.**

**Please, read, review, recycle. Thanks.**


	10. Chapter 10

The Home was very different on the inside than The Protector had expected. Posters depicting angry splicers lined the walls, with slogans such as "Never Trust Them!" and "Abominations!" emblazoned on them. Rusted pipes dripped gray sludge down the walls and the floor squealed with protest every step The Protector took. The place was filthy and disorganized, with ramshackle homes set up in hallways like a homeless camp. A dozen glowing yellow eyes peeked out of the hovels and there was quickly a flood of little girls in the hallway.

"Daddy!" The Daughters cried out, mobbing The Protector and clambering all over him. The climbing was something the girls never grew out of.

"Hi girls," He rumbled contentedly, his eye-lamp glowing a vivid green. "Can everyone get all of their sisters for me and bring them to…" The Metal Man glanced at Tallest for a prompt.  
"The Story Room."  
"Gather up all your sisters and bring them to the Story Room. Tell your Big Sisters its important, okay?" The girls all stampeded off in different directions, giggling and squealing about Mr. Bubbles.

"This way, Father," Tallest was pointing to a staircase that looked slightly better kept than the rest of Lynch's Court. She sounded sullen and bitter over getting reprimanded, and kept casting dirty looks at The Damaged One. "The Story Room is where we go every day to count the little ones. They are used to being gathered up on short notice." The Protector's gaze drifted all around the room, taking in the filthy environment the girls lived in. The Protector remembered when the Family cleared the Old Home of the Splicers that had pretended to be their family. The girls had promised that they would never allow conditions to get that bad again, with everyone living in squalor.

"Wait." He rumbled, his powerful call shaking the hovels. "What has happened here? First you send away one of your sisters that obviously needs help, and now all this? This is not the conditions these girls, your own little Sisters, should be living in. What has happened here?"

Tallest's sullenness quickly changed to shock, then shame. She hung her head and her eye-lamp dimmed slightly. The other two in the entourage refused to look at him, while The Damaged One stared blankly at a doll that lay on the ground. Finally, the Shortest in the group stepped up and spoke, her screeches half-caught in her throat.  
"We don't know. We just, we… we tried, but it's so hard! We don't know what to do! Everyone needs so many things, and we don't have them! We can't clean up, because we can't remember how to! We can't teach them how to read or write, because we never learned, we can't tell them what to expect when they grow up, because we still haven't grown up! WE kicked her out because we didn't want to be reminded that we failed at taking care of her! There are so many things, and we just don't know!" The Shortest fell to her knees, vicious sobs grating against The Protector's eardrums. The Protector moved forward to comfort his daughter and patted her on the helmet, his gloves scuffing against the metal.

"When all this is over, ask for help. We'll give it. Every last one of your Father's will do anything for you." Tallest crouched down by her sister to hug her, and looked up to her Father.

"What exactly is 'all this' anyways?" she asked, her screech echoing down the staircase next to them. The Protector began down the stairs and motioned the girls to follow him. By the time The Protector's group entered the Story Room, all of the little girls had found a seat on the padded floor. The Metal Man recognized the room from a picture in a book, called Asylums of Middle America, although this room was easily three times larger, and could hold all thirty-odd of the little sisters with ease. Some of the Older Daughters leaned against the walls, and some hung from the ceiling, with fluff falling from the holes they ripped in the mattresses.

"Hello girls," The Protector greeted them, and the roar of "Hi Daddy/Father" was nearly deafening, and it took a few seconds for the giggling to die off. "I really need all of you to listen, this is very important." The room had suddenly become very still and quiet. The girls always listened to their Fathers, after all. "There is a very dangerous splicer that is plotting to kill all of you. He is very strong, and very smart. When one of you got poisoned by the ADAM, that was his doing. His army of splicers is probably already on their way here, and it is far too many for any of us to fight." The deathly silence was only broken by an insane giggle from The Damaged One. "We are going to have to work together on everything for this, with absolutely everyone working. I will assign jobs to the Older Sisters, and you will assign jobs to the Younger Sisters."

The Protector had tried to use a calming bellow when he told the girls his news, and he was proud of them for holding it together, but he could see the fear in their body language. It was understandable; he had just told them that they may all be doomed. However, there was also a determination behind the fear. The Older Daughters took their orders seriously and began herding the young ones around to their hidey holes. After the last Daughter had received their jobs, Tallest, The Damaged One, and the other two Daughters stole over. The Damaged One scampered onto his helmet and perched, while the other three stood rigidly.

"Why didn't you give us assignments Father?" The one who hadn't spoken yet screeched. The Protector noticed she had blue roses painted on her helmet.

"I didn't tell everyone, because you four have the most important job of them all."

* * *

**A/N: I'm back! I missed another week, but here it is, the exactly-1000-word special tenth chapter, where I actually move the plot along and use the most obvious cliffhanger in all existence! Sometimes all it takes to get work done is "What should I be doing at 3 AM on a school night? FANFICTION."  
I really wish I could have gotten this to you guys sooner, but I've been so busy with school, homework, and debilitating illness that I just couldn't get it done before now. Plus I'm lazy. However, here it is, the new chapter, with a new update time. I actually had to go back a few chapters to review on my villain, and I've realized, you guys are right. My Chapters are way too friggin' short! There's barely any words on these pages! So, here's my longest chapter yet! (still only 1000 words, and that's the usual length of short chapters in other stories...)**

**Some quick thank-you's to my friendly cool people:**

**Barber447: Thanks for being a completely and all-encompassingly cool person, as well as continuing to read. Hopefully you'll still love me after all this time. :D Plus, you are completely right. Even by my standards, that last chapter was too short.**

**NJL97: For once more being an incredibly cool person, Mr./Mrs. NJL97. You must have read their story by now, right?**

**MadLink007: Thank you very much! And you're right, they are very short. That's what I get for only writing after midnight. I made it longer. I did it for you... ARE YOU HAPPY YET!? :D**

**Everyone who has read up to this point: Thank you so much for spending the time to actually read this far into my series. I have really loved making this, and it seems that you guys like to read it, and that means so much to me. I do a little happy dance every time I see that someone has viewed my story. Just, I love you guys. It means so much to me that youguys read this, and it would mean even more if you could give me a little feedback by pm'ing me or leaving a review. I'd love to hear from you. We have free cookies!**

**Thank you lots, and please,**

**Read, Review, Recycle**


	11. Chapter 11

The Protector's trek through Rapture was utterly silent, his own pounding footsteps seeming muffled by the hollowness of the halls. The normal sounds of the Splicer population were missing. There were no gunshots, no cries of anger, and no half-sane ramblings of hunger and rage. Normally Rapture was quiet, but not silent.

The Protector's sole companion curled like a spring on his shoulders, tense and twitchy. The Damaged One had acted differently since the assembly, and had been anxiously tightening her grip on his shoulders throughout the navigation back upstairs. After leaving Lynch's Court, and parting ways with the Tallest, the Blue One, and the Shortest, The Damaged one had grown as silent as the rest of Rapture. She was flighty at the best of times, but now had morphed into being solemn as the grave. For someone with no face, she seemed to be doing her best to frown.

When The Protector stopped in a dimly lit atrium to "eat" some discarded mush that had once been a plate of chips and a bottle of vodka, her demeanor seemed to change slightly. She set her shoulders and drew herself to her full, impressive height.

"Father, what happens when we die?"

The Protector felt the burst of endorphins from the nutrients flowing into his veins, and turned back to where his Daughter was standing in a planter, ferns covering her feet. The question caught him a bit off guard.

"What?"

"What happens when we die?" The determined stance was completely at odds with the innocence of the question. "Do we go somewhere else? Do we get to come back, like the old Vita-Chambers?" The last remaining Vita-Chambers in Rapture had been hunted down and destroyed long ago, after the Traitor used them to come back time after time and kill more Daughters. Her hopeful tone about returning from death worried him.

"We stop." The Protector moaned, shrugging. He had never really thought about it before. Everything died eventually, usually violently, but what happens after? What would happen when he died? "I don't know what comes after, but we stop. Nobody comes back, not anymore. We might go somewhere, we might not. We might just stay where we are, not able to move. All I know for sure is that we stop. We stop forever." The Damaged One's adamance slipped away, and she wrapped her arms around herself, slumping to the ground.

"This Splicer wants us all to die?"

"Yes." The Protector nodded solemnly. He might have been too blunt about it, but if she thought she could just come back from death, and jumped right into the fray…

"I don't want my sisters to die. I thought they might be able to come back, like the other Father did…" Oh. So that's what it was about. Her thoughts were selfless, even after the being treated like a leper.

For her to mention the Traitor was strange, but for her to mention him was even more out of character. None of the other Daughter's ever liked to speak of him, of course, but the subject was Taboo with The Damaged One. The Protector let the subject drop with that, and the two lapsed into silence again as The Damaged One lethargically climbed his shoulders. He trudged off once more into the dark and dank of Rapture.

Almost three hours of uneventful walking later, the duo was at their destination. They heard it before they saw it, like steam being blasted through hundreds of pipes. The great hall, where The Protector had seen the enormous Splicer the first time, stretched out before them. What little light came through the glass ceiling dimly illuminated the crowd before them. The simultaneous breathing of the filthy host of Splicers rasped through the air.

* * *

**(A/N): Hello everybody! I'm still not dead somehow (though I feel it. Words from the learned: Sleep is a necessary component of life. But so are video games and cartoons. Wow, I'm off-topic within the first sentence, new record). Sorry for being late on this chapter again (does anyone actually remember the last time I put out a chapter on time?), but I was visiting family last weekend, and *insert excuse for not putting it out on Saturday here*. But here it is, a week and two days late!**

**I've got some pretty cool people to thank!**

**Barber447, for being an excellent dude/dudette/worm-like lifeform. Good luck with your story, pal. I know I'll read it!**

**NJL97, for the unwavering support of this series since the beginning, and being an all-around cool individual. I think I've plugged your story enough for everyone here to have read it by now, hopefully. *puppy eyes at those who haven't***

**Madlink007, for being really excited! I'm glad you liked it, it actually took a bit more work, and I still had to take a few shortcuts with the plot so that I didn't get super off-topic.**

**Glass57, Thank you sir/ma'am/Space-lizard. I'm glad you liked it. I hope you read through all of the other chapters, as well :)**

**Radio Free Death, Thank you very much for the advice, although that is the first chapter you reviewed. Hopefully you read the others and enjoyed them. I'd like to think I got better about those things, but the seemingly-random capitalization is on purpose. I explain it a tiny bit in Chapter 4, but the Big Daddies, or at least The Protector doesn't fully understand names. To him, groups (like books, species, etc.) have names. Individuals and individual objects only have titles that describe them, not names. (He is the protector of the sisters. She is the damaged one the others have shunned. She is the tallest of the group. etc.)**

**Everyone who has read this far, I sincerely thank you. Over five-hundred people, from over thirty different countries have at one point read this story, and that blows my mind. I love you all.**

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_**Attention: **_**The current arc is almost over! I only have a few more chapters planned for this story! That may or may not mean that the series is ending as well, but I'm not sure yet. If you guys would like to see more from the Fathers and Daughters of Rapture, let me now. I'd love to hear your feedback.**

**Per usual, please**

** Read, Review, and Recycle.**


	12. Chapter 12

Hundreds of Splicers stood in a rough semblance of ranks four wide, and a gap every six lines. Every Splicer in each platoon was staring blankly ahead, entirely synchronous with those around him or her. It was difficult to get Splicers to stop murdering each other for a few seconds, even with a hypnotize plasmid. To get hundreds to follow orders, not to mention to act with discipline, the plasmid used must be inconceivably powerful, and used by someone even stronger. If the appearance of the Leader that The Protector saw last time wasn't a farce, a hypnotize plasmid wasn't even their largest problem. That gargantuan Splicer could easily crush even a Big Daddy with its bare hands. Against that, a Daughter would be helpless.

"What are we doing again?" The Damaged One whimpered into the back of his helmet. Luckily, she had the good sense to be quiet, and was being careful not to move much on his shoulders. Even if the hypnotized Splicers weren't the most attentive, the clang of metal hitting metal might draw any wandering eyes, and Big Daddies weren't inherently stealthy.

"We are scouting. We need to know what they plan to attack with. Knowing is half the battle." The Protector remembered that phrase from one of his books, and felt it fit. If the Daughter's knew what they were up against, maybe it would give them an edge over the mindless hordes of Splicers. He continued to size up the enemy for several minutes, and felt more than heard The Damaged One's gasp. Her knees rattled against his shoulders, and she silently pointed down into the farthest end of the Atrium. A large fleshy mass spasmed in the dank corner, and it took a moment for The Protector to recognize It as the Leader of the Splicers.

Since the last time, It had mutated further, and grown even more grotesque. The nubs that had dotted Its body were now fully grown limbs, hands and feet flailing wildly in fits. Even more eyes had popped up across Its body, with two large ones resting on muscular stalks atop what may have once been a head. Several slathering mouths snapped at the air from Its shoulders, and bio-florescent green pus now dripped from Its pores. With a great sucking sound as Its flesh separated from the floor, the Leader wrenched Itself to its massive main legs and stomped forward.

"Brothers, sisters! Lend me your ears!" It cried, Its voice having a distinctively moist sound. "Tomorrow comes the day where claim our vengeance upon the Tiny-Ones! Soon, our dream will be realized, and the Tiny-Ones will fall to our feet and beg mercy!" The glowing green monster of a Splicer, who was still as veiled as ever, began to clap, his many hands either hitting each other, or slapping against his rubbery skin. Although the Leader managed to raise quite the din clapping on his own, most of the chamber was dead silent, with none of the Splicers even looking in his direction. He continued his spiel, and The Protector watched him. As always, the deluded Leader was convinced that his many devoted followers were singing his praises, and lapped up all of the applause.

"We are finished, Father." Tallest slipped out of the shadows, followed by her friends. She brandished a sheaf of several papers and a few graphite pencils.

"We studied It for as long as was safe, but with It getting riled up, we decided it was best to re-group." Blue Rose said, handing over her own papers and pencils. Shortest handed her stack, the thickest one, over and scampered up a pipe into the ceiling.

"It's time that we left." The Protector rumbled quietly, noticing the jumpiness of his Daughters, and set off back the way he came. It was time to finish the preparations, and study the drawings and notes of the Leader for any possible weakness.

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**(A/N): Good day friends! Here's the new chapter! Chock-full of events and juicy, delicious plot! By chock-full, I mean sporadically covered with mildly-interesting details that the story probably could have done without! Yeah! Exuberance!  
So I noticed that the more I like a character, the more capitalization and length I put in their title, like The Protector and Blue Rose. Although I'm pretty sure I edited quite a bit of the less obvious parts of that out, I left the Leader of the Splicers mostly un-capitalized simply because I never like my antagonists as people (which is a good thing, I think. Its harder to want to make your protagonist win if you like your villain more).  
Also, is it sad that I've developed a head-canon for Blue Rose? A head-canon, of a fanfiction. That I'm writing. Expect more appearances, if not just yet.**

**I gots some peoples to thank:**

**NJL97, for being an overall nice guy/gal/horribly deformed monster (one of these things is not like the others). You've been a constant source of encouragement from the beginning, and it really helps me when I'm writing these chapters to look at the reviews and see what you've said. It always puts a smile on my face :D**

**Barber447, for staying with me through this whole story as well. You and NJL97 have stuck with me since almost the first chapter, back when this story was going to be a slice-of-life. Thank you for all the kind words over the past few months! I'm still looking forward to that story! Remember, if you ever get stuck or have writer's block or something, just do what I do. Take out a sheet of paper, or open up a fresh word doc, or whatever you like to use, plug in your headphones and play something exciting (I use Daft Punk's Alive album, with electronica and random Viking Metal usually), then just write any plot idea that comes to your head. Don't worry too much about story coherence or even basic spelling/grammar. Just jam to music and word-spew. Maybe you'll have something usable after tons of editing, maybe not. Either way, it clears the cobwebs out. Good Luck!**

**DarkosRamain, for an incredibly excited PM! Thanks for telling me how much you liked the story! I hope you like this chapter just as much!**

**To anyone reading this far into the story, thank you. Seriously, Its amazing that you guys read all this. I'm really glad you like it thus far! I'd love to hear from you! If you've got the time, leave a review telling me what you think, or PM me if you like. We could just talk and stuff if you want. Either way, thank you. :D **

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_**Smitty-Werben-Jaeger-Manjensen:**_** This story only has a few more chapters left, and when I asked last chapter if I should make a new story in the same universe-thingy, I got a few messages saying yes. Does anyone else want that? PM me or leave a review saying yea or nay. Tanks 3**

**Per usual, please:**

**Read, Review, Recycle**


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